


testimony.

by jojotier



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Cooking, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, POV Second Person, Pre-Canon, could be read as platonic or romantic tbh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-24
Updated: 2020-06-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:48:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24889378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jojotier/pseuds/jojotier
Summary: Tim tells Sasha about Danny.
Relationships: Sasha James & Tim Stoker
Comments: 2
Kudos: 17





	testimony.

**Author's Note:**

> Big shout out to the timsasha server for enabling me on this one!!! I got a prompt about nightmares and cooking breakfast together and I was like Oh Worm on the nightmares and now here we are.

Walls are closing in. They pitch, they strain, they shudder under the bubbling weight of old history burning into tight claustrophobia and they reach. They reach in at all sides as the footsteps echo down and forward and around and back, dance neverending into the dissolution of nerves draining into skin. They are reaching for you. You walk through the doorway and that too-close-I-will-not-breathe feeling crawls into your ribcage and rattles the bones with long fingers of anxiety that are sourced wholesale from the roiling bile in your stomach.

You are not the focus. You are merely the observer- the audience. You know you are that which is meant to see, but you do not know what it means to be the audience, and in the tumbling lights that is where the plateau begins. What the plateau is, you do not know. You will not know.

The thing they hide is that it’s not possible to not know. It’s a pretty enough lie, if your reality is cracking down on your back with the snap of whiplash against a snapping spine, but there is no unknowing. There is only what you know, being twisted up and hidden under your own neuroses until you think you don’t know.

You know this because you don’t know this place that bleeds razor music through the pores of the walls, speakers mouths gaping open the gaze that remains transfixed center stage. 

But you do know this place, because it is your gaze fixed centerstage.

You don’t know if you have eyes but if you don’t know you don’t have eyes then you shouldn’t know the sight dripping along your optic nerves, vision injected into your brainstem from the inverse needle of your pupil caving inward. You don’t know needles either, but you must know needles, because you know the feeling of them pricking your legs, pinning them in place with the pin cap brushing cold against your kneecaps, moth caught under the microscope.

You don’t know moths and you don’t know microscopes and you don’t know kneecaps, but you must know kneecaps because you are still standing and your brother is not still standing and your brother is under the microscope so you must know microscopes, too. 

You don’t know skin being taken when you see it, but you know what a tomato looks like. After you boil the fruit and its shiny red surface is dulled, you know how to pass the knife in four neat strokes, cross section with the lightest touches of razor sharp edges. You know what it’s like to gingerly worm the tip of your finger underneath the crease and begin to peel. Slow, careful movements. Slow, careful peeling, revealing the juicy red inside hidden just underneath. You don’t know that your brother is that tomato but you know that he isn’t and both possibilities are equally disconcerting.

You try to know his name but you do not know your brother’s name.

But you do know your brother’s name because you haven’t stopped screaming it.

You’re never going to stop screaming. You don’t know how, except you know how because your breath is gone and you’re trapped under the ringmaster’s gaze, pinning you under the microscope in turn, waiting, hungry. 

You don’t know and you won’t know but that shouldn’t hurt so much because your brother is still on the ground and whatever this is that’s happening, it’s something that you don’t know is a nightmare. Too dreamlike. Too far away. You could break apart and float away and your brother would still be on the ground, flattened skin neatly picking itself up and waving. You don’t know what to do but you do know what to do is to sit back and take your head in your hands and scream yourself hoarse along with the laughter bubbling from your throat that you don’t know but know because it’s a show your brother has been putting on, and don’t you know that your brother loves to make you proud?

Around and round it goes to show the silent facade of not knowing that you want to stop knowing that you don’t want to stop knowing that you want to stop knowing that you don’t want to stop knowing that you want to stop knowing that scuttles around your skull like a great burrowing thing knowing your terror into the hours of the night. You know you’ve seen this before but you don’t know you’ve seen this before your nightmare knows you’ve seen this before you don’t know your nightmare has seen your nightmare has seen your nightmare has seen your unknowing your knowing which binds your lungs tight in circles from the places in the floor where your brother writhes and echoes and squirms and knows you don’t know you don’t you don’t know the rhythm has set in because this is your 

knowing his gurgling cries, but you don’t know your brother is still alive knowing that you know your brother is still alive not knowing that his pain will never stop knowing how the blood looks cherry syrup neon in the lights centerstage knowing downstage is the place to drag the performance onto the act of knowing

You don’t know the hand clasping over your mouth. 

You don’t know the hand clasping over your mouth and you don’t know who’s crying out and you don’t know what you’re seeing or if you’re seeing what you know because your hearing is

“Tim?” You don’t know this voice knowing some name knowing “Tim, Tim- just- listen, Tim, it’s okay,  _ you’re okay-!” _

You suddenly know everything.

You know, first and foremost, that you’re Tim, and that you’re in bed and you’re thrashing. You know you can’t see not because you don’t know how, but because it’s pitch black outside and you have blackout curtains because the sun shines through your window at the crack of dawn and you didn’t want to ruin a lazy day with a spotlight to the face. And you know that the hand over your mouth is Sasha’s, and you know it’s your teeth digging into the meat of her palm.

You know your name is Tim, and your stomach drops low in your body when you realize you’re still biting. You let go and try to put some distance between the both of you, but her arms are tight around you, and you feel sharp needles of pain crawling up from your own wrist. 

You’d been biting your own hand in your sleep.

Any other time, after any other nightmare, it’d be something a little funny. Who wakes up to the fact that they’re biting themselves like a rabid dog? That’s proper horror shit, the kind of thing in really bad movies from low-budget production houses looking to turn a quick mil. 

But this isn’t a normal nightmare. It’s from the worst night of your life. The night that you thought you went proper mad- the kind of night that made you feel like you were liable to jump out of your own damn skin and join your brother on the wooden floor. 

And you know that this time, you’re not alone. You know that you have Sasha with you.

Shit.

“God,” You croak, stop yourself short. Take in a ragged breath and try to clear the stinging tears out of your eyes. This just causes more to come. Leaky faucet vision. With a shuddering breath, “... God. Sasha, I am. So sorry. I- I didn’t mean, never would have-” 

“I know,” Sasha soothes, and her hand smooths over your side. She’s laying at your back, so warm after the chill of the cold auditorium that you’re close to another round of hysteria. “I know, Tim- it’s okay.” She pauses, then says softer, “I’m just glad you’re back with me.”

“Yeah,” You say for lack of anything better for your soupy brain to muster, “yeah.”

You’re still shaking, but it’s subsiding. Your right leg somehow managed to escape the blanket cocoon you and Sasha had encased yourselves in and your torso is half twisted. For several long moments, you both lay in silence, waiting for your breath to roll back into sync.

You wet your lips. Say again, “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t need to apologize- you’re the one who just had a nightmare,” Sasha says it so lightly. Your stomach hurts.

You say, “Do you… want to know. About it.” The idea of having this happen- of dating someone you think is normal only to have him have some whacked out night terror and being left in the dark- makes you actively sick. Or maybe it’s just the act of not knowing itself that makes you ill. It’s hard to untangle it all- how much is from the dream, from memory, or from the knowledge of what you’re going to tell her.

Sasha speaks carefully, delicately, not because you’re going to snap and lash out but because she wants to treat you delicate. “If you want to say,” Her arms are solid where they squeeze around you, certain of yourself, being in that hold.

“... want to have something to eat?” Your stomach still hurts.

Sasha slowly loosens her grip, and you wish you hadn’t thought to say anything that would imply you should move from this. But her voice is warm, in the dark. Says, “Sure,” and you think that maybe it will be easy talking about Danny, if only because it’s Sasha’s face you’ll see.

She doesn’t turn on the bedside lamp when she slowly pulls herself out of bed, untangling herself from the covers and from where your kicking legs had settled with only a vague susurrus of sound. The lights remain off as your hand brushes against where her fingers are reaching to help you out of your side of the duvet, and her fingers don’t stop where you’ve paused. The comforter peels away sticky with sweat, and you’re just glad you’re past the stage where you had to rush to the bathroom immediately upon awakening to puke your guts up.

You roll out of bed on her side, rolling over a few times before finding the edge of the mattress just so that you don’t have to be alone for the trek around the bed. Your hand finds its way into hers and she leads you unresisting through the dark, leading with the confidence of someone who’s only been in your apartment for months and the gentle  _ shhh  _ of her palm brushing the wall.

You let her lead you and don’t question the fact that she doesn’t turn on the lights. You’re the blind leading the blind, and it reminds you of a documentary you saw on falcons once. They have to put a hood over their eyes so that they’re calm enough during check ups not to claw. 

Her fingers finally find a lightswitch and she informs you, “I’m turning on the lights now,” before flipping the switch. The sudden influx of visual stimuli shocks into you so quickly that you think you might fall back, but blinking rapidly makes you understand your surroundings, rather than makes them incomprehensible. 

You realize you recognize your kitchen and slump into the hand propping up your arm. Dark spots are still dancing on the periphery of your vision when you finally look over at Sasha, who glances out over the kitchen with one eye closed and the other still open. 

You must be looking pretty funny in that moment, because she glances at you and smiles, explaining, “You know how pirates had those eyepatches? It’s the same principle here- makes it easier to adjust.”

“Pirates can adjust to nightmares like that? Hell, I should’ve poked an eye out ages ago,” You try to joke, but it’s falling flat even to your own ears, and the logic behind the words isn’t exactly sound. You’re still disoriented. 

Sasha just squeezes your arm and says, “Let’s just get something in you so you stop talking nonsense- don’t need you getting ideas about not needing depth perception, now.”

You should definitely have a witty retort to that. Something lighthearted and equally ridiculous to liven up the conversation; something to jump at the chance at banter that Sasha is opening up for you. But you remember that you’re supposed to be telling her what happened, and your throat closes.

All you can offer is a weak smile. Sasha smiles back and lets you go, drifting toward the counter nearest to the kitchen window to find where you stashed the unsliced loaf. 

You’d meant to use that in the morning- or, in a few hours, it’s more accurate to say- to surprise Sasha. You were supposed to slice off big, generous slices and dry them out in the oven to prepare for a genuine french toast breakfast, with cream and cinnamon in the egg mixture and everything. Instead, Sasha gently slices normal sized pieces and finds your toaster, and you’re left hovering beside the door frame, unsure of where to go in your own kitchen without her.

When you see her hand around the knife, you can see the indentations from your teeth have already nearly faded into nothing- as if that had been a figment of your imagination. It still can be, for all you know.

It’s pathetic, you know. In the gleaming steel surface of the fridge across from you, you see your own vague reflection, and you know that Tim is judging you. That Tim is standing in the same position that you are, and that he’s looking you over with an accusation clear on a face that you can’t even see, distorted by text on a glittering background. It’s an LG fridge, whatever that means.

“It took his skin, you know,” You don’t even know why you say that. Why those words, why now, why in that way and tone of voice- but it doesn’t matter, because Sasha is pausing from opening the fridge door. (You think she said she likes blackberry jam in the mornings, strawberry in afternoon. You stocked up on both.) 

She turns and looks but you’re still looking at the Tim there, in your distorted reflection. Her voice is impossibly gentle when she asks, “Whose skin?” No accusation, no suspicion. Just probing you to open up. And, well, you’ve already come this far- other Tim be damned.

“My- Danny’s. My little brother’s.” You mentioned Danny to her before, of course, on the nights when pub drinks had you just a little more loose than normal. You can never get far on those nights because you usually find some excuse to loudly and badly change the subject, but you have hazy recollections of telling her about Danny; about how amazingly talented and intelligent and all-around good your brother was as a person. About how much he meant to you. Still means to you. You love him so much that it aches.

Sasha doesn’t speak, and now that you’ve started, you can’t stop. “He was always so adventurous and curious about everything, you know? Anytime he found something that he loved- really loved, something that just, got his heart going and the light in his eyes just, he would… he would do everything he could to share it. He wanted everyone to see how exciting things could be, and he was- it was infectious. Even when I didn’t really want to be a part of it directly, he’d still find a way, like with- with the last holiday, with the bungee jumping, he, with the cord, it-” 

You pause long enough to take a breath. Your knuckles are going white from where they’re gripping the wood of the door frame. Your thought process is jumbled, and you try to bring it down into something comprehensible- ease Sasha into it, like Danny did when “-he took over most of the bungee jumping this one trip, when I tried. The cord almost snapped on me, and he just took a go-pro and,” You laugh a bit at the memory, and your reflection across from you swims in turn, “he took so many pictures of it. The way down, the water below, it- it was all so beautiful, but my eyes were closed, and he still wanted me to see it. 

“So- so that, when he started urban exploring, I thought maybe that’s why he didn’t push when I said I-I wouldn’t go with him to explore underneath the Old Opera House. He- at first he came back, and I had him right over there, on the couch and I,”

You swallow thickly. Try again, a thick “I-” managing to leave your throat before it gets tight and hard to breathe. You don’t know when you started leaning your full weight against the doorway and you are only aware of it when Sasha crosses the room and hugs you. 

You don’t really know what to do with yourself, being hugged like this. This is supposed to be the moment of truth- the full expose on the fucked up machinations of your mind, vividly recounted in technicolor, and you’re floundering on stories about the last vacation you and Danny went on instead. You can’t even tell her about the clown, because then you’ll sound crazier than you do now, stumbling over the force of your own breakdown. 

“I’m sorry,” Sasha says, and where she smooths her hand over your back it burns molten bright, “I’m so sorry…” 

You want to tell her not to apologize and blow it off with a joke- it’s not like she’s the clown that skinned your brother alive. You want to tell her that it’s not over, that it’s not nearly over, that you still have to get the rest of it  _ out,  _ that you still have to tell her what you saw. But the words refuse to come, and you’re trembling in the middle of your flat at God knows how early in the morning.

You’ve rehearsed this a thousand times. It starts with,  _ here’s what I saw in the room,  _ and ends with,  _ and that’s how my brother died.  _ You need to speak but you can’t and the only thing you can wheeze out through the wracking force of your own sobs is, “The toast- is gonna burn,”

“Oh, damn the toast,” Sasha says, pulling away just enough to look at you. She still looks beautiful, even rendered through the watery filter that your tears cast over your sight. “Tim, you just had a night terror the likes of which I’ve never seen, and you- you’ve had this, all this time...” 

You wait for her to finish, but she trails off, taking in a steadying breath. Her hand on your face is warm, and she rests her forehead against yours, so close and intimate that it makes your heart flutter. You’re probably looking pretty disgusting right about now; all snot and tears and truly awful bedhead because you forgot to wash the gel out. But she still holds you close and vulnerable.

She looks at you searchingly and says, “Thank you for telling me,” 

“... Thank you for listening,” is all you can say, robbed of words as you are. You think that, maybe, that’s okay. 

The night is still cool and dark outside the window as you both drift back into the kitchen. She reaches for blackberry jam and butter and you’re scooting the coffee maker out from where it’s pinned between the counter and the cabinets above. No amount of paper towels sequestered from the plastic holder makes your face feel any less sticky, but you hesitate to leave and freshen yourself up. 

You’re already thinking of all the ways you’ll make this up to her- something to really thank her, maybe take her someplace- but when she brushes against your side, standing on her toes to reach the plates, you think that maybe you can set the planning to the side for now.

It’s only you and Sasha, quietly making a half-lazy breakfast together, domestic in a way you haven’t experienced in a long time. There’s still a lot you want to say about Danny, but it’s not just the sad, horrible bits anymore. You think you still have the box of blurry photographs your brother had taken. Later on, after you have your fill on companionship and cafe bustello, you’ll dig them back out and start choosing frames. 

You’ll hang up the amatuer photography as proudly as you display anything your little brother has given you over the years, and you think that maybe, even if it hurts and even if you ache down to your soul to look at it, it’ll be a nice reminder. 


End file.
